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CHAPTER IV CLEVEDON—LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS: COLERIDGE
Clevedon is now entered by the modern suburban developments of Walton Park. Suburbs and light railways, and all the things they mean, do not come into the minds of those who have merely read of Clevedon and have not been there. Clevedon to these untravelled folk means Coleridge and Tennyson and Hallam, a certain “quiet cot,” a stately Court and a lone church on a hilltop, overlooking the Severn Sea. These are essentials; the rest is incidental. But when you come at last to Clevedon, you discover, with a pained surprise to which you have no sort of a right, that the position is altogether reversed: these literary landmarks and associations are the incidentals, and the essentials—well, what are they? It would puzzle even an old-established resident of Clevedon to say. Nothing matters very much at Clevedon—except that half the houses are to let; and that is a matter of moment only to the owners of them and to the tradesfolk. How do people make shift to pass the time here? 26They don’t care for literature: they don’t stroll the sands, for there are none; and they don’t walk, for it is a neighbourhood of atrocious hills, except on the way to the railway-station, the dust-destructor, and the gas-works.